


Questionable Cargo

by BuriedBeneath (NeverendingTori)



Series: Sixteen Years [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic, Star Wars: The Old Republic
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Fluff, Romance, brief mention of attempted rape/non-con, cyborg smuggler, no details given
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 13:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3611907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverendingTori/pseuds/BuriedBeneath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was once a time when Captain Raya Dace drifted comfortably alone and under the radar of any galactic authorities.  "The best smuggler is an unknown smuggler," her mentor used to say.  </p><p>But, when a thief and a farmboy intrude on her cozy routine, she's forced to embark on a chase that will drag her (kicking and screaming) across a galaxy determined to get her killed.  And if she just so happens to fall in love along the way--wait, who said anything about love?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Questionable Cargo

**Author's Note:**

> Finally getting around to crossposting this from FF.net! 
> 
> First chapter jumps right in (somewhat abruptly, I'll admit) because this was originally intended to be just a oneshot. But now I'm 18 chapters into this thing and have no intentions of stopping any time soon.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> EDIT: I should have mentioned before, but there is a brief mention of attempted rape/non-con in this first chapter, as well as some violence, as these are things that occurred in Raya's past. No details of the attempt are given, though Raya does briefly explain the violent response that led to her scars and cybernetics. It is not my intention to belittle the experiences of those who have survived a horrible event such as this by including it in Raya's story, but to bring into focus the kind of environment in which Raya was forced to grow up in, on her own, as a child trying to survive in one of the roughest districts of Coruscant. My heart goes out to those who have survived such a traumatic attack, and the struggles they face daily because of what their attackers put them through. I apologize if including this has caused any offence, as this was not my intention at all.

The moment Corso saw Captain Raya Dace exit her freighter back on Ord Mantell, he knew she was his ticket off the planet.  He recalled how she had stepped out into the dusty, war-torn air, making eye-contact with Skavak (who towered over her by a full head at least) as he approached with her payment and shaking his hand, and how she'd walked with an air of confidence that filled the space around her, despite her tiny frame.

She was younger than he'd imagined a Captain to be, probably only his age or slightly older, with pale blue eyes, sharp cheekbones, and long ebony hair pulled into a tail set high on the back of her head.  Corso could only see the right side of her face, at that point, and while he did notice the mild cybernetic on her lower jaw, he couldn’t help finding her strikingly beautiful.  He'd thought the cybernetics were simply to enhance what was naturally there.  But when she’d turned toward him as he made his way over, he realized his mistake, and had tried to hide his surprise when he saw that almost the entire left side of her pretty face and neck was marred by burn scars, and there was another cybernetic affixed to her forehead, above her left eye.  When she spoke, he realized that the muscles around that eye were completely dead, and it was likely that--unless the eye itself was cybernetic--she was sightless in that eye.  It was then that he realized the mechanics were there to  _repair,_  not enhance, and it was the first indication that she’d been through hell at some point, and that it had made her into the tough, business-oriented smuggler that she was today.

That moment awoke a curiosity inside Corso about her that had not left him since.

Captain Raya was what some more scholarly types would call an "introvert".  But Corso was a farmboy fresh off of Ord, so he just thought of her as a loner... and he meant that in the  _nicest possible way_.  She would spend long hours in her quarters reading or working on a datapad, or in the Captain's chair in the cockpit with her feet propped up on the control panel, staring out into the void in quiet reflection.  

He got the distinct impression that she didn't have many friends.

She was quiet, yes, but she wasn't shy.  A job as a smuggler would not have suited her otherwise.  Her quietness was simply a result of her distinct hatred of small talk and a lack of anything more substantial to talk about.  When dealing with clients, she was professional, always focused on the job, and her easy laughter and crooked grin allowed clients to feel comfortable around her without much preamble.  She was good at her job, and though what she did was not strictly  _legal_ , she had a firm placement of lines she would never cross.  Slavery and spice, to be precise.  The former because she  _hated_ it, and the latter because it was too cut-throat.  

Corso knew all of this within the first few weeks of knowing her, because although she was generally quiet, once she started talking about something she was good at, or interested in, one was hard-pressed to get a word in edgewise.  And once you broke through that exterior of cool austerity, she was a blast to be around, with her dry jokes and lack of shame when it came to doing something ridiculous for a good laugh.

But despite him knowing all of this about her in the weeks since they met, he still knew frustratingly little about where she'd come from.  Because if there was one thing Captain Raya  _wasn't_  open about, it was her past.

"Corso?" Her voice suddenly cut into his contemplative silence, and he focused on her face again.  She was staring at him with her only live eyebrow cocked upwards on her forehead, and a smirk pulling her mouth to the side.  At his surprised expression, she laughed quietly, shaking her head and crossing her arms loosely as she leaned back against the bridge's control panel.  Her laughter was something to be cherished, he realized.  While it was anything but rare, each little chuckle made something stir in him that he’d thought buried for longer than he cared to remember.

"Yeah?" he replied, shaking the fog from his head.

"You were on another planet, for a minute there."

"Sorry, Captain.  What were you sayin'?"

Her smile grew wider, “I didn’t say anything.  It just got real quiet in here real fast, that’s all.”

"Oh."

"Y’know, Corso," she said, shrugging, "I’m not even  _technically_  a Captain.  I never went to flight school, and was never in any kinda military.  I gave myself the title, because it sounded more official.  But it’s not like I ever actually got the credentials.”

"You have your own ship.  That’s Captain enough for me."

She sighed, shaking her head, “Take a hint, farmboy.  You don’t have to call me Captain.”

"I, uh, don’t want to offend, Cap--, er… Should I call you by your family name, then?"

He was surprised by the darkness that flashed across her face then, and again when it vanished just as quickly to be replaced by her familiar smirk, “I think we've known each other long enough to be on a first-name basis, don't you?  Just call me Raya.”

The strange emotion he'd briefly witnessed on her face roused the curiosity in him, and he decided that if he was ever going to learn anything about this woman, he was just going to have to ask.  It was only fair, wasn't it?  She enjoyed peppering him with questions about his past, after all.  

"So, Captain,"--he realized too late that he’d slipped, but she let it go with a knowing grin--"You know just about everything there is to know about me, huh?"

“You’re my partner, aren’t ya?" she responded with a shrug, "I like to know the people I work with.  I need to know who I can trust.  Otherwise I’ll end up working with more skeevy sons-of-rancors like Skavak.”

"Well," he said, returning her shrug with one of his own as he leaned on the table beside her, "what about you?  You know all about me, but I don't know nothin' about you."

She considered this for a moment, her brow furrowing, before she nodded. “I guess that’s fair.  What do you wanna know?”

He shrugged again, “I guess…  Well, let’s start with your homeworld.”

Her head shook lightly, and she gave him a wry grin, “Would you believe it was Coruscant?”

"… Naw, not really."

She exhaled a breathy laugh, “Well, it was.  But it’s not something I tend to advertise.”

"Why not?"

"It’s… not a place that I have a lot of fond memories of," she responded after a moment.

"D'you… have any family there?"

"I did, once," The Captain explained. "My parents died before I was old enough to remember 'em, and they didn't really have any prospects, so my older sister and I wound up on the streets.  She took care of me after that."

"Is she still there?  Why didn’t you go see her, when we were on the planet?"

"She ain't there anymore."  She considered this for a moment, before amending with, "Well, I don’t know.  She could be, but I’d have no idea how to find her."

"Why’s that?"

Silence fell for a moment, and with the way her jaw clenched, he began to regret his line of questioning.  It didn’t seem like she’d had it easy.  But then, he had already known that, hadn’t he?  Not only from her visible scars, but he could tell by the way she carried herself with a sort-of wounded confidence, and unbreakable strength borne out of adversity.  But that still didn’t make it any easier.

"She was kidnapped by slavers when she was thirteen."

"Captain, I…"  Yep.  He regretted it now.  "I’m sorry."

"It’s the reason I became a smuggler," she continued with an appreciative nod. "Not just 'cause it’s pretty much the only thing my particular set of  _skills_ are good for, and not just 'cause I practically stumbled into the career, but because it gave me access to a ship, and opportunities to fly all over the galaxy.  She’s out there somewhere, and I’m not gonna rest until I find her and kill the bastard who thinks he owns her.”

A solemn silence fell over them again, and he apologized a second time, shaking his head, “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

"Hey, no, it’s okay," she protested, "You were right.  S'only fair for me to tell you about myself after everything you’ve told me."

She smiled at him, so, after a moment of reluctant hesitation, Corso finally asked her to continue, “What about you?  What happened to you after your sister disappeared?”

The Captain caught his eyes when they flicked briefly to her cybernetics, and her lips pulled into a smirk, “In other words, what in the void happened to my face, right?”

"No!  That’s not what I--well, I was wonderin', but I--that is--uh…"

"Relax, farmboy," she responded, laughing, "It happened ten years ago, and it ain't exactly inconspicuous.  You think you’re the first person to ask?  I’ve long since come to terms with it.  I mean sure, I’ve lied about it more often than not, but that's just to keep things interesting.  There are roughly eight different stories circulating about how this happened, and those are just the ones  _I_ made up," she said with a cheeky grin, “But you?  I guess you deserve the truth.”

He started to protest, weakly, but she ignored him, crossing her arms and leaning back again as she began: “I was ten years old when my sister disappeared.  And when you’re that age, and living on the streets, there ain't a whole lot you can do except use your small size to beg, pick-pocket, and steal from vendors, and for a couple years, I did exactly that."

"You were a thief?" he asked, but there was no judgement in it.  He understood well the need to break a few laws in order to survive.

"A petty thief, yeah.  Didn't really have much choice as a puny ten-year-old who looked even younger," she explained. "Then, when I was twelve, an acquaintance of mine managed to lie his way into working for a wealthy scientist in his lab.  When I found out, I asked if he could do the same for me, and he said sure.  I ended up employed as a glorified janitor, cleaning the scientist's house while he was down in his lab, but the money was decent and I had a roof over my head, so I couldn't really complain.  He wasn’t the nicest of guys, and had one hell of a temper, but as long as I stayed outta his way, he never had any issues with me.  I worked there for years, and once I learned how to stay on his good side, I gradually made my way up to working as one of his lab assistants.  He specialized in bio and chemical weapons, and I never did find out who his main consumer was, but I doubt it was legitimate."

She took a breath and shook her head, her blue eyes focused on the memory. 

"Anyway, when I was sixteen, he tanked what would have been a particularly profitable business deal with one of his clients.  I dunno what happened exactly, but I knew it wasn't good, because he retreated down to his lab with four bottles of whiskey.  He got drunk, and after a few hours, called me down.  It wasn’t the first time he’d done it, so I thought he just wanted me to help him up the stairs.  But that wasn’t his plan this time."

Corso could see that this was going somewhere bad, fast, but when he opened his mouth to object, she held up a hand, giving him a pained, yet reassuring smile.  So he quieted, and allowed her to continue.

"He had always been a flirt with other, older women, and when he was drunk, he would occasionally flirt jokingly with me, but until then, I’d never felt uncomfortable around him.  But that night, he got a little too friendly with me, and decided that my young age didn’t matter anymore."  She paused for a moment, her mouth turning down at the edges and a sneer twisting her features. "When I refused, he threw a beaker of acid in my face, and landed a solid kick to the side of my head when I went down screaming. Sick bastard broke my jaw."

Corso hadn't realized his hands were clenching until he felt his fingernails bite into his palms.

"I _never_ saw it coming.  I mean, he'd always had a temper, but it was... _so outta the blue_ for him to lose control like that."  She pursed her lips in confusion for a moment. "I dunno if it was just the failure from earlier in the day in combination with his drunkenness, or if he mixed something with the whiskey, but whatever the case, it made him  _crazy_.  I thought he was going to kill me, and I have no idea how I managed to get his blaster, I just know that I did.  So I shot him, and I ran.  And I never looked back."

"Did he die?"

She shook her head, "Doubt it.  I'd never handled a blaster before.  I think the bolt ended up in his leg, but I can't really remember."

"Where'd you go?" Corso asked.

"Well, I knew I needed to get off the planet.  I knew everything about this guy.  I knew all of his contacts, seen all of his experiments.  I knew all about his black market dealings.  While I was too terrified to ever expose him, I wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t come after me, so I made my way to the spaceport and snuck into a freighter and stowed away.  The freighter happened to belong to a smuggler by the name of Fellin Dace.  He found me before taking off, when he went back to double-check his cargo. It was just as well that he did, because I probably wouldn’t have survived the trip otherwise.  I was terrified, and when he saw what kind of shape I was in, he took pity on me.  He brought me to a medcenter, even paid for the basic cybernetics needed to repair my jaw and eye, and stayed until I healed to make sure I was okay."

"Why'd he do so much for a complete stranger?  I can understand taking you to the medcenter—I mean, who wouldn’t?—but everything else?"

Her mouth pulled into a fond smile when she responded, “He came to visit me a lot while I was recovering from the surgery, and I wondered the same thing.  When I asked him as much one day, he told me that he had a daughter once, Dari, but that she died when she was a teenager.  He never told me how, and I never asked, but he said that I reminded him of her, and that it brought out his hidden heart of gold.”

"How did you ever trust him, after what happened with that scientist?"

"Well, at first, I didn’t really have much of a choice.  I was in agony, and I couldn’t exactly fight him.  But there was something about him that was genuine.  I knew I could trust him, and even after that, I never got the impression that he was lyin' to me.  He had his fair share of secrets, sure.  But he never outright lied to my face."

"What happened after you healed?"

"He went back to work, of course.  When he told me he was finally leaving the planet, I begged him to take me along.  He refused.  Said the life of a smuggler was no life for a young lady."

Corso shook his head with a chuckle, “I don’t suppose you took that well.”

"I did not," she replied, grinning. "I explained in no uncertain terms that I was neither of those things, and when he didn’t budge, I stowed away on his ship again.  Only this time, he didn’t find me.  I came out of hiding after I felt the ship make a hyperspeed jump, because I knew it’d be too late to turn back."

He grinned, “That sounds like you.  What did he say when he saw you?”

"Oh, he was furious, but I didn’t care.  I escaped a life I hated, and nothin' could bring me down.  Fellin threatened to drop me off at the next planet, but I pleaded with him to let me stay.  I wanted to see the galaxy, and told him I’d do any work around the ship that needed to be done, as long as he'd teach me to be a smuggler, like him.  I wanted the thrill of skirting the boundary between legal and illegal, because if my childhood taught me anything it was the knowledge that if something was  _legal_ , that didn’t necessarily mean it was  _right_."  Unfolding her arms, The Captain turned around and faced the viewport, staring out into space. "I wanted a life of excitement.  But most of all, I wanted to see my sister again.  And he was the one to help me do it.  He eventually got tired of my whining, and agreed to teach me the skills I needed to get into the smuggling scene, but he said that as soon as it was over, he was dropping me off at the nearest planet, because he refused to be responsible for me."  She paused for a moment, laughing slightly. "He kept telling me that, but he never did make good on it."

"Sounds like he was a good man."

She nodded, “He was the closest thing I ever had to a father.”

There was a moment of solemn silence, and even though Corso had an idea of the answer, he asked, “What happened to him?”

"He died seven years ago," she explained. "There was no blaster fire, no epic space battle.  He didn’t go down in a blaze of glory, like he said he always wanted.  He died in the ship, in his sleep, of a heart failure he never told me he had.  I was devastated, and didn’t know what to do.  Then, as I was going through his things in preparation for his memorial, I found a holorecording on his datapad addressed to me.  It started off by telling me that if I was watching it, it either meant that I was snooping through his stuff—and in which case, to leave his stuff alone, or I’d be cleaning the refresher for the next six months—or that he was dead.  In that holo, he told me that he was proud of me, that he loved me like I was his own daughter, that I was the only family he had left, and so he was leaving everything, including the ship, to me."

Corso stared at her for a moment, and then looked around at their surroundings, “This was his ship?”

She nodded slowly, “It still is.  Before that, the ship was just called the _Legacy_.  But it's  _his_ legacy now.  So I renamed it to the _Dace Legacy_ in remembrance of all he did for me, and as a reminder to treat her well.  Now you understand why I went to such great lengths to get it back, and why I want to make Skavak suffer for taking it away in the first place.”

"I ain't never questioned that, Captain," he assured her. "Skavak’s a dirty, heartless thief who deserves what’s comin' to him.   _And_ , he's still got my Torchy!"

"See, that’s why I keep you around."  She replied, nudging him gently with an elbow, "You understand me."

"Captain," he said, tossing her a wink, "I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be."

**Author's Note:**

> Read more about Raya's sister in my other SWTOR longfic, The Harder They Fall.


End file.
